The Final Initiative

26.

"Have you guys ever studied quantum physics?"

"Like... bacteria?"

"Well, uh, no. Smaller"

"Okay, uh.. Eukaryote?"

"Kind of, sorta, not really. Okay just listen" Scott Lang shook his hands back and forth, taking this moment to clear his own thoughts as he gathered his choice of words. Jessi ceased her pointless guessing.

She stood beside him back inside of the Avengers compound, even though she was initially planning on driving all the way home to the lake. It was an unexpected change of plans. He appeared to have a lot to say to her, but didn't exactly know how to get it all out in a way that made since. Once she dragged him inside of the compound, he was able to collect himself for the more experienced Avengers.

Natasha leaned against the desk as she listened to Scott who sounded completely ruffled. His dark hair was pushed back from the amount of times that he had ran his fingers through it "Alright. So... Five years ago, right before... Thanos" Scott motioned to Jessi, who was the one to bring him up to speed on the past five years "I was in a place called the quantum realm. The quantum realm is like its own microscopic universe-"

"Bacteria" Jessi muttered under her breath, hardly audible.

"To get in there, you have to be incredibly small" he used his pointer finger and thumb to demonstrate "Hope, she's my... She..." he stuttered, rubbing his hand along his jaw "she was my... She was supposed to pull me out" he closed his eyes, getting back on track" And then Thanos happened, and I got stuck in there" they all assumed that this Hope girl was one of the people who vanished five years ago.

"Sorry. That must've been a long 5 years" Natasha apologized.

"Yeah, but that's just it. It wasn't" Jessi's eyes narrowed in the slightest as she listened to him talk "For me it was five hours. See, the rules of the quantum realm aren't like how they are up here. Everything is unpredictable" Suddenly he pointed behind Nat to her messy desk where a half-made peanut butter sandwich was sitting alone "Is that anybody's sandwich? I'm starving!" He exclaimed in exasperation, pushing past everyone in order to get to the food.

"Scott. What are you talking about?" Steve asked.

"So... What I'm saying is..." he said while chewing "Time works differently in the quantum realm. The only problem is right now, we don't have a way to navigate it. But what if we did? I can't stop thinking about it. What if we could somehow control the chaos, and we could navigate it?" he used the sandwich as an example. This was beyond Jessi's wildness imagination, and far beyond her level of understanding "What if there was a way that we can enter the quantum realm at a certain point in time but then exit the quantum realm at another point in time? Like... Like before Thanos"

Jessi took a step back, her head snapping to Steve to meet his eyes. Something inside of her sparked, a spark that hasn't been present in a long time. A time before Thanos, a time where things can be changed.

"Wait" Steve raises his hand "are you talking about a time machine?"

"No. No, of course not" Scott scoffed, shaking his head back and fourth in an unconvincing matter "No, not a time machine. It's more like a... Yeah, a time machine" he eventually gave up "I know it's crazy. It's crazy. But I can't stop thinking about it. There's gotta be... Some wa... It's crazy" he dropped his eyes to his peanut butter sandwich that had one bite in it. Jessi tapped her finger against her chin.

"Scott, I get e-mails from a raccoon" Nat said plainly "So, nothing sounds crazy anymore"

Jessi smiled "And I have saved Manatees with said Raccoon"

"So... who do we talk to about this?" Scott asked the three Avengers standing around him.

Steve turned to look at Jessi. She was leaning up against one of the tables towards the corner of the room. For a moment, she couldn't figure out why he was eyeing her, but then she realized "Guys, I- I don't think he would" she bit her lip, feeling unsure "I don't think it's... I just don't know about him"

"We have to try" Scott said in a pleading voice "Wait..." he paused "Who are you talking about exactly?"

"My Father"

"Iron Man?!"

Jessi nodded. Who'd you think it was she thought to herself Batman?

"If you don't think he will... then we'll try something else" Steve shrugged his shoulders, his hands shoved in his front pants pockets.

"Actually, no, let's ask him" she said swiftly, the mechanics in her brain spinning to life as she stared at the floor "He has to know something about quantum physics" she looked between the three standing around her "We'll go to him, see what he says. Maybe if he realizes that we could have a chance here, then maybe he'd want to help"

"You think so?" Nat asked.

      "Y'all wanted me to go home, didn't you?" She replied with a tint of sarcasm, walking towards Natasha's desk and taking a mint from the bowl at the edge of the desk. She tossed it into her mouth "We leave in ten, come on Anty" she instructed, waving to Scott and walking out of the room. Scott sucked his teeth but followed her back to his van.

"Whatever you say, Captain" Steve called as she disappeared into the hallway.

"Wasn't she twelve and getting lost in the SHIELD heli-carrier like, yesterday?" Nat raised her eyebrow.

      "She comes from a long line of leaders" Steve spoke thoughtfully, thinking back on Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, both of whom she's related to. Her great aunt who passed away all those years ago, and her grand father who died in the car accident. Not to mention her mother who was a skilled agent before she passed on "It's good to have this side of her back"

      "Her mom trained me, you know?" Nat enlightened "Taught me that I can be good, that I'm not what other people tell me that I am. I've tried to do the same with her" She motioned to the door that Jessi had walked out of "To be as good as Tara Carter was, but, everything that I've ever told her, everything I ever advised... she already knew" a smile crept up on her lips "She's carrying out her moms legacy, while simultaneously solidifying her own in stone. God, what the hell are we going to do with her"

"We're going to let her have this win" Steve nodded "Because somehow we'll win... we have to"

      Scott opened the back two doors to his rusty van which was falling apart at the seams. Jessi waved her hand in the air to clear the dust that floated off from the inside. Located in the trunk was the machine that Scott had attempted to describe. It was a high-tech piece of hardware that made no sense to her, but just might be her saving grace "So, um, is this your Delorean?"

"You could say that"

"Does it go 88 miles per hour?" She questioned.

"65 on a good day and on a full tank of gas"

      She eyed the quantum machine for a few moments longer before turning to Scott rather quickly "Are you really the same guy who got all big all those years ago in Berlin? Because that was freakin' crazy, you grabbed me like a Barbie doll and chucked me into a plane... Looking back now, it was freakin' pretty cool!"

"You just said freakin' twice in the same sentence"

      "I've been hanging out with a PG 13 Raccoon who'd much rather be saying another word" she pointed out.

Scott nodded slowly "you guys are just as weird as I remember"